| 26th August 2006 11:17 AM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
25 August 2006
Legendary Record Producer Shaped Early Rock and Roll
Sam Phillips and Sun Records fused musical genres
By Michael Jay Friedman
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- In January 1986, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted its first 12 members. Elvis Presley was honored. So was Jerry Lee Lewis. And so was Sam Phillips, the man who launched their careers. Twelve years later, Phillips entered the Blues Hall of Fame, where B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf and other legends who cut their first records for Phillips already were honored. In 1998, Phillips joined Johnny Cash -- another of his discoveries -- as a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.
These diverse honors reflect how the record producer Samuel Cornelius ("Sam") Phillips (1923–2003) fused American musical traditions, shattered racial barriers and introduced a sound the world would know as rock and roll.
A native Alabaman, Phillips grew up poor and recalled picking cotton during the Great Depression. From a young age, Phillips learned the blues and other music pioneered by African Americans. He later worked in local radio and in 1945 was hired at a larger station in Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis long had been a center of activity for gospel and especially blues music. W.C. Handy, "the Father of the Blues," made his musical home on the city's Beale Street. When Phillips arrived, Beale Street was home to clubs and restaurants -- many black-owned -- where leading bluesmen like the young B.B. King refined their craft.
Phillips longed to record the "Memphis Blues." Major recording studios, however, saw little commercial potential in what they sometimes disparagingly called "race music." In October 1949, he borrowed enough money to rent a small storefront at 706 Union Avenue. Calling his new business the "Memphis Recording Service," Phillips advertised "We Record Anything-Anywhere-Anytime."
He meant it. Phillips made audio recordings of weddings, funerals, even the Miss Memphis beauty pageant. The profits let him give blues artists the chance to record. "I wanted to give some opportunity to talent that I knew had never had the opportunity -- probably never would have," Phillips told National Public Radio (NPR) in 1999. "You couldn't go out and borrow any money for a crazy venture like recording black folks and white folks singing like black folks."
The Memphis blues greats recorded at Phillips' studio, with their albums often released by the Chess Records label, run in Chicago by the brothers Leonard and Phil Chess. For many, it was a unique opportunity. Musician Ike Turner recalled that when B.B. King passed through his hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi, he told the young Turner, "'Man, you should be recording…. I know the guy in Memphis, Tennessee, where I'm recording at. His name is Sam Phillips. I'm going to get him to give you a call.'"
Phillips did call. "I had never seen a recording studio before in my life," Turner told NPR. The result was "Rocket 88," by Turner's band Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, which many scholars consider the first rock and roll record.
In 1952, Phillips founded his own record label, Sun Records. He began also to record white artists who mixed blues with southern, typically white "roots" music like bluegrass, country and hillbilly boogie. The admixture became known as "rockabilly."
Phillips' big break came in the summer of 1953. Memphis Recording Service was always willing to cut a vanity record, one where a singer would pay for the studio time. That summer, a handsome 18-year-old “walk-in” recorded two songs -- a gift, he said, for his mother, but music historian Peter Guralnick suggests that Elvis Presley went to Phillips "to be discovered."
(See related article.)
http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2006&m=August&x=20060816170536BCreklaW0.6157648
Presley's talent was obvious, and he was called back for an audition. Elvis cut his first commercial recordings for Sun, and Phillips' relentless promotion of those records -- he later claimed to have driven more than 100,000 kilometers a year visiting local record shops, distributors and radio stations -- helped the young Presley emerge as a regional star. In November 1955, Phillips sold Elvis' recording contract to the national RCA label for an unprecedented $35,000.
Johnny Cash came to Phillips in 1955. He wanted to sing gospel, but Sam told him to "go home and sin, then come back with a song I can sell." Cash returned with new material, and established his reputation at Sun, which released important early Cash singles like "Folsom Prison Blues."
Other major Sun artists from this period included Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and Charlie Rich.
Phillips discovered Jerry Lee Lewis ("The Killer") playing at a Natchez, Mississippi, club in 1956. The following year, Lewis produced one of Sun's signature hits, "Whole Lot of Shakin' Goin' On," written by an interracial composing duo.
Phillips' contribution to the racial integration of American popular music stands among his greatest achievements. Not only did he afford black musicians unprecedented recording opportunities, his Sun Records introduced millions of white Americans to elements of predominately African-American musical forms, Once white-owned radio stations played Elvis, the Killer and Carl Perkins, it was a relatively short step to add black artists like Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin and Curtis Mayfield to their playlists. Geoffrey O'Brian, editor in chief of the Library of America, has called the result "a radio empire of the night [that] effected a crossing of racial lines."
Sam Phillips died on July 30, 2003. The next day, the original Sun Records studio on Beale Street was designated a National Historic Monument.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels] |
| 26th August 2006 11:23 AM |
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| lotsajizz |
quote:
Ten Thousand Motels wrote:
25 August 2006
Legendary Record Producer Shaped Early Rock and Roll
Sam Phillips and Sun Records fused musical genres
By Michael Jay Friedman
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- .....Phillips' big break came in the summer of 1953. Memphis Recording Service was always willing to cut a vanity record, one where a singer would pay for the studio time. That summer, a handsome 18-year-old “walk-in” recorded two songs -- a gift, he said, for his mother, but music historian Peter Guralnick suggests that Elvis Presley went to Phillips "to be discovered."
I wish they could get it right on the 'big break'. It was summer 1954, end of June or beginning of July, if I remember from Guralnick's excellent volume.
[Edited by lotsajizz] |
| 26th August 2006 12:12 PM |
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| JuanTCB |
I think Elvis initially went in to record "My Happiness" and maybe "That's When Your Heartaches Begin" in July '53 with Marion Keisker engineering, then just pestered Marion for the better part of a year before he got a call-back from Sam, which of course was in early July '54 and resulted in the "That's Alright" sessions. |
| 26th August 2006 12:23 PM |
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| lotsajizz |
I think it was just a couple of weeks after he graduated high school--he was working for the local electric company at the time... |
| 26th August 2006 03:26 PM |
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| JuanTCB |
An extremely hammered Sam on Letterman in '86 - good stuff!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHVDm2PHig4 |
| 26th August 2006 08:30 PM |
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| Mahatma Kane Jeeves |
Sam Phillips was one of the original investors in the Holiday Inn Corp,. which made him a VERY wealthy man!! |
| 26th August 2006 08:59 PM |
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| Gazza |
quote:
JuanTCB wrote:
I think Elvis initially went in to record "My Happiness" and maybe "That's When Your Heartaches Begin" in July '53 with Marion Keisker engineering, then just pestered Marion for the better part of a year before he got a call-back from Sam, which of course was in early July '54 and resulted in the "That's Alright" sessions.
thats correct. |
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